


Fondness and Absence

by HeatedHeadwear (SplickedyHat)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: AU, Alcohol, Eridan Realizes He is a Fucked-Up Human Being, F/M, Gen, Humanstuck, Interpret as you please, Introspection, No settled pairings by the end of it, People have affection for each other and might be together in the future, i don't really care, slowly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-10
Updated: 2014-05-10
Packaged: 2018-01-24 06:22:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1594802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SplickedyHat/pseuds/HeatedHeadwear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She didn’t ask for help moving out.  When he texted her to ask about it, she’d already made the trip there.  When he asked about the fight, she didn’t text him back.  That was when the waiting started.  And it kept going, every exchange monitored so that he could give a little less than he got until she started giving more.  Instead, he thinks she’s just started giving less.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fondness and Absence

**Author's Note:**

> This story's premise is unapologetically borrowed from the song We Are Beautiful, We Are Doomed by Los Campesinos! Sometimes a song just makes pictures in your head and you either have to write a story or draw a comic. I don't have time for comics so I wrote this.  
> It was important to me that this not be "Eridan the friendzoned asshole gets in a fight over a girl" or "Poor baby Eridan has no girlfriend". It's something else. There's a little of me in this as usual, my self-justified dumbassery and social problems. There's a kind of happy ending, even if it isn't really a neat one.

Witness: Eridan Ampora crying into his bedroom carpet.

It’s white shag carpet, and he is crying silently. There are crumbs of an indeterminate nature a couple of feet from his face, alternately liquefying and solidifying as he idly readjusts the focus of his eyes.  With his face squashed against the floor, the carpet stretches away from him in an expansive plane, the more distant corners immutably blurred. His left hand is resting limply on his glasses, a hard corner digging into the bony knob of his wrist.

There’s a click and he lifts his head, which feels as though it’s made of concrete, craning his neck to see the little black video recorder in front of him.  His phone takes video and photo, but a year ago he was into old cameras and what he wants, he generally gets.

On the slanted, bluish screen, a boy and a girl lean together to fit inside the camera frame.  They both have black hair--the boy’s hair is sleek and brushed back from his forehead, the girl’s wildly curly—and dark skin (the girl is darker). They could almost be brother and sister, but they’re not.

Things would probably have been easier if they were, Eridan thinks miserably, watching himself lean in to kiss the girl’s cheek. She makes an awkward, grimacing half-smile and says something inaudible and Eridan winces and kicks his feet against the floor in emotional agony, groaning, _“Stupid.”_

The camera shakes and everything blurs as Eridan in the video takes it from whoever was holding it before, pointing it at the curly-haired girl.  She smiles and waves, cocks her head in response to some unheard question, and then laughs, looking a little uncomfortable.  Eridan on the floor groans again and fumbles for the _off_ button. He sits up, wet-faced, eyes bloodshot, and hunches over the camera to stare blankly down at it for a moment that stretches into something more like a minute, the silence broken only be dismal sniffing.

Then he twitches, makes a cracked noise in the back of his throat, and throws the camera into the wall across from him. It dents the drywall and falls to the floor with two loud clatters—the video display has broken off.   His gut barely twists at the sight of the camera in pieces, and he sits there for what might be another hour or so, hands crossed limply over each other in his lap. 

He only moves when he realizes he can feel his pulse against the knuckles of one hand.

\--

His memories of good times with her aren’t days or conversations or exchanges or—anything so extensive. They’re tiny, crystallized moments. Like when they were lying on towels next to the pool at her old house and he looked over to see her watching the fireflies in the dusk-purple grass and there were droplets of chlorinated water still clinging to her hair.  In that single moment he also remembers the damp chill of tile against his elbow where it rested beyond the towel and the fuschia designer two-piece she was wearing, and the gentle curve of her back.

Then he wanted to reach out and run his hand along that curve, but that painful twist of never-fulfilled longing came after that perfectly-preserved moment when he looked over to see her lying there.

He thought later that the fireflies’ glow was insultingly optimistic, much too quaint and twinkly for a world in which nothing he said or did could bring them closer together.

He rolled onto his back so he wouldn’t have to see them and wondered if she had glanced over to see the way his torso twisted, if her eyes followed his hand as it swept his still-wet hair back from his brow.

Probably not.

“We’ve really grown up fast, huh Fef?” he said, and the words felt thin and insubstantial instead of being heavy with meaning and subtle, sexy implication.  He might as well have just opened and shut his mouth for all the good it did.

She said, “Yeah,” and he couldn’t tell if she was happy or sad or something else, and it scared him so he didn’t say much of anything after that.

\--

He’s browsing old files from his camera when she calls him properly for the first time.  He jumps and yelps triumphantly at the sight of her name but lets it ring three times before picking up, counting on his fingers.

“Hey, Fef,” he says, “how’ve you been? I was gonna call you but, well, totally slipped my mind.  Lookin’ for colleges and all, you know.”  _And so would you would be, if you hadn’t messed it all up._

 _“Yeah, I’ve been suuuuuper busy too!”_ she says, and he hates how cheerful she sounds, that she doesn’t seem to care that he hasn’t called.   His chest burns and the muscles of his neck contract a little and he forces the smile into his voice.

“All finished moving in, then?”

_“Yeah, last week! It really didn’t take too long. Everyone here was really helpful and nice, and one of them’s even—oh, wait, I have to tell you about the nights out! When I’m done job-hunting for the day we go to a different bar, sometimes just to eat—“_

“Anything as good as The Gambler?” he fires off, maybe a little quicker than he should have—she sounds taken aback when she answers.

_“Well—I only went there with you guys once, and that was the night you—“_

He interrupts again, eager to avoid reminiscence over that particular memory.  “Yeah, forgot about that…well, don’t let ‘em push you around, okay, let ‘em know if you’d rather go to bed.  You need to get your sleep, right?”

She giggles faintly and his heart jerks. _“Come on, Eridan, it’s not like that at all!  They’re really nice and, like, they helped me with unpacking and everything…”_

“Hey, I’d have helped you if I could’ve been there,” he says, trying to sound mock-hurt and realizing that even she can probably hear petulance instead.  “Who are they, anyway?  What are they like?”

_“Oh, right, I was going to say earlier--you remember Sollux from high school?”_

“Oh man, Captard?” says Eridan, and laughs. Then he abruptly imagines her face and stops, hastily summoning a more lighthearted response.  “Uh, yeah, why, he want to be your friend on Facebook or something?”

_“Eridan, don’t be mean! He lives in the same apartment building and he invited me out with his friends last Friday and—you know, I hadn’t really…made any friends before that…”_

“You can do better than _that_ , Fef,” Eridan says encouragingly, rolling over to stare affectionately at the next picture on his computer.  “I mean, I’m not sayin’ you were best pals with Vris and Gam and the rest but we had some good times, right?  You’d be better off hangin’ out with people like them than _Tholluckth_ …” He’d been hoping she’d laugh, but she just made a little _hm_ noise that made him utterly uneasy.

 _“Actually, he had his teeth fixed last year.”_ Eridan’s throat tightens around a wordless growl, wondering discontentedly why she felt the need to tell him this.  He thinks, _Bet I could break ‘em again_. His knuckles tingle.

“Well,” he says, trying to sound slightly chilly enough to make her wonder if he’s upset, “if that’s what been keeping you busy you should probably get back to having fun, right?”

_“What? But I’ve only just started telling you—and you haven’t told me anything about what you’ve been up to! Come on, Eridan…”_

He bites back the bitter retort, _Well I’ve been crying, mostly_ , and says instead, “Sorry, Fef, I’m tired.  Call you later, maybe.”

He doesn’t wait for an answer before hanging up, but he hears the first syllable of a word and he wonders glumly what she was going to say.

Now…should he wait again for her to call him back?

He does, of course.

\--

And when he can’t bear waiting anymore, he calls someone else instead.

It should have been Karkat, by all rights, but “this Feferi SNAFU” is apparently the one bit of relationship drama Karkat will have none of anymore.

So he calls Vriska instead.

_“You’re whining, Eridan!”_

“You’d know about that, wouldn’t you?” he snaps, feeling more justified by the second--he _knows_ Vriska is always wrong. “Whine whine, huge bitch—“

 _“Yeah, I_ would _know, because I had to deal with your bitching for years!  We all did! I’d wanna be shot of you too,_ Eridumb. _”_

“But you picked up my call,” he points out. She snorts, and he can just _see_ her flipping her hair, irritatingly contemptuous.

_“Yeah, well, you’re like…this train wreck that hasn’t finished burning. I just can’t look away! Not gonna lie, though, this isn’t nearly as bad as the one time we were at The Gambler and you got drunk and threw up all those fries you ate on the field—“_

“We’re not _talking_ about that!” he groans into the receiver

 _“I’m right though,”_ she says, infuriatingly superior.  _“You fucked up that one_ reeeeeeal _bad trying to look cool. Now, I’m not Karkat, thank fucking_ God _, but you could probably still save this one if you didn’t do a repeat of that, because at this point? Peixes can do better. A lot better.  And she probably knows it!  Not that you care what the smartest girl you know has to say on the matter.”_

“Yeah yeah, I know,” says Eridan, as carelessly as he can, and hangs up before she can finish drawling, _“Train wreeeeeee_ —“

He felt a little bad about hanging up on Fef, but Vris has done it to him enough times that he feels victorious, bolstered for having cut her off first.

\--

Their parents used to let them all go out together, as late as they liked so long as they weren’t loud coming back to the house. Or, if they stayed out all night, so long as they texted to let mom and dad know. 

There were visits to bars, to restaurants, making casual reservations at places most kids their age had never heard of, spending sleepover nights in five-star hotels.  For all that it was mixed-gender company, they all disliked each other too much to have sex.  Well, except for Eridan and Vriska, whose hatred was so intimate and unceasing that they might actually have gotten around to it if they’d ever been alone together.

But that was then, and now even the social bonds of similarly wealthy families aren’t enough to keep the group together. Gamzee was never exclusive enough anyway so of course he was the first to drift away, and Eridan’s single dad suddenly became more interested in spending money on Feferi’s single mom than giving it to Eridan.  And Vriska would never pay for their parties on her own, while Equius Zahhak never seemed interested in associating with them outside of school anyway.

Eridan always thought that there had to have been an upside to keeping company with them.  At least they all understood each other, and at least it meant he and Fef got to hang out on a regular basis. 

It’s only now, re-watching the videos they took at some of those parties, that he’s started seeing her discomfort. She seems happier talking to Vriska than she does with him.  And that just doesn’t seem fair, because whereas Vriska glared and teased and maintained a kind of gleeful, noncommittal enmity with the other girl, Eridan really _tried_.  He was always ready to share his feelings with her--well, most of his feelings.  And he always made sure to ask about hers--well, up to a point.  And they’d been friends for so long…

But they weren’t kids anymore and things weren’t that simple, apparently.  When you’re five years old, friendship is nothing.  “Friendship” is something that happens from being together and not being too mean to each other and having parents that encourage you to play.

And that lasted long enough for Eridan to feel like that was the norm, but Fef started changing and it was just so… _confusing._ Just being around and inviting her out didn’t seem like enough, and then neither did talking to her, and then in Junior year he took a step back from his feelings for her and it was like looking at a map of streets you’d been driving for years.

The metaphorical map would be labeled in large letters, spelling out _You Love Her_.If that were the right word for it, anyway, but it wasn’t completely, in the same way that _You Want to Have Sex With Her_ wasn’t quite right either. 

Maybe just _You Want Her_.

And he did.  And it hurt.  And whatever he did, however he acted, he felt less and less as though she wanted _him_.  Or even wanted to be around him.  Kind of like everyone else in their group.

But it wasn’t his fault, he knew it couldn’t be, because he was _trying_.

\--

Maybe Vriska was right.  Maybe he’s doing this all wrong and he doesn’t know it. Maybe that’s the worst part, because if it’s true he can’t see why and if he were normal, wouldn’t that make him feel bad?

Shouldn’t he hurt?

Or maybe a better question is, does he hurt for the wrong reasons?

 _I’m a fucked-up human being_ , he thinks absently, trying out the feeling of the words. It doesn’t come easily and when he does manage to immerse himself in it, it makes panic rise in his throat like bile.  _Ohgod ohgod what if I’m doing it all wrong_ starts racing through his mind and he shuts it down, all of it, and stands up abruptly.

He hasn’t left his room in a while. Dad’s gone of course, probably at Peixes Place.  Bastard. He’s kidding himself if there’s any future in sleeping with that woman, even if both their houses will be empty soon.

Hell, he’s kidding himself if he thinks there’s any point in Eridan going to college.  For a while, Eridan was looking forward to that—getting out of the house, not having to text home when he’s out all night—but now he’ll be going there alone. And for all that he knows who “the right kind of people” are, none of them will be her.  None of them will be “the right kind of people” _and_ sweet and pretty _and_ really his friend.

Eridan takes out his phone, grimaces as the screen lights up to show his photo gallery, and with a few flicks he pulls up a web browser.  As he scrolls listlessly through the “New Student” page of yet another college, he wonders how many people have crossed this school off their lists because of the tuition. He doesn’t have the grades for a scholarship but Amporas don’t need scholarships.  Of course, Fef always had the grades but the money—

\--

She didn’t call him until days after the fight, and when she did it wasn’t to confide in him or ask for advice. It was to tell him that she was moving out. She gave him her new address and he wrote it down on his wrist because he didn’t have paper on him, but as soon as he’d saved it on his phone he scrubbed at the ink until his skin was pink and every last letter was gone.  

Mrs. Peixes visited the next day, and Eridan stayed upstairs in his room but her voice carried through the floor and even his headphones couldn’t block out everything she said.  Dad had to be pleased she came to him.  That made him furious until he realized it was fury born of envy, and it faded into cold, heavy misery.

She didn’t ask for help moving out. When he texted her to ask about it, she’d already made the trip there.  When he asked about the fight, she didn’t text him back.

That was when the waiting started. And it kept going, every exchange monitored so that he could give a little less than he got until she started giving more.

Instead, he thinks she’s just started giving less.

But her new address is still on his phone.

\--

The bus ride is bumpy, uncomfortable, and hot. The air outside is full of early autumn chill, and his scarf and heavy jacket feel horribly stifling in the warmth of the bus.  With every jolt and grumble from the uneven road he regrets not just driving, for all that there’s apparently nowhere to park unless you’re a resident of the apartment complex. 

But he has a feeling his dad wouldn’t pay for another towing so he pretends his shoulders aren’t bumping against those of two other sweaty, disgruntled people, and an hour later he’s standing outside the door of an ancient brick building.  It’s three stories tall, with ivy growing up the walls and weeds in the cracks of the sidewalk outside. There’s a rusty bicycle leaning against the wall and an assortment of faded plastic children’s toys scattered near the other door

It takes longer than he’d care to admit for him to summon the courage to go into the building, but after that he does it’s mostly a matter of making his way nervously past its various unsavory occupants.

When he knocks on the door of room 133, he expects a little time to take a breath and think about what he’ll say. He expects to hear her voice and feel his heart start to race and feel the usual dizzy thrill in his stomach when he sees her face again.

The door opens after the second knock and a boy looks out at him.

Sollux Captor looks different than he did in high school.  Of course there’s the same thin-bladed nose and the narrow brown face.  And there are the same dark-rimmed eyes under a coarse mess of dark hair…but bits of the hair are dyed blonde and his lower lip is pierced in two places.  He’s not wearing the big baggy nerd shirts and Good Will jeans anymore, but something…else. The look is too neat to be punk, too brightly-colored to be goth, but it’s _some_ fucking form of counter-culture and Eridan doesn’t need to know what it is to hate it.

He gives a crooked, entirely unfriendly smile and calls without taking his eyes off of Eridan—“Hey FF, you got a visitor!”

Eridan opens his mouth to say something but there’s really nothing to say.  What do you say to the boy you used to mock as a kind of hobby?  _Oh, I see you’re in Fef’s apartment, what were you doing exactly?_

“Coming, coming!  Who’s—“

And there she is.  But the thrill in his stomach is stopped cold as she steps out from behind Sollux and he sees all of her.

“Oh my god, Eridan!  You didn’t say you were coming here, I was just about to go out!”

“Fef,” he says, his throat trying convulsively to swallow the words, “you…your hair…”

“What?”  She reaches unthinkingly up to her head, looking worried. “Is there something… Oh!  Oh, right, I never sent you a picture!”  She gives him one of her shockingly white smiles and it stabs him right through the heart.  “It was Sollux’s idea, and since Mom…since she doesn’t care what I do anymore, I thought it would be neat to try something a little…rebellious!”

Almost half her hair has been shaved off, strips of velvety black stubble patterning the left side of her head. Even as Feferi lets her hand fall again, Sollux reaches over with one flat, long-fingered hand to sweep a couple curls of black hair away from the shaved patch, running a thumb affectionately over her fuzzy scalp.  She smiles again. Her eyes are wet.

It’s at this point that Eridan understands that it’s really never going to happen.  It’s a simple, almost elegant moment of clarity, like the first time he put on a pair of glasses.  The feeling that accompanies it is more like a heart attack, and he _wants_ his heart to stop, to fall apart because it is broken and still beating and the pain is intensely physical.

He wants to hit her, because she doesn’t love him, because he loves her so very much, and the thought is so very _very_ fucked up that he holds his face for a moment in a fit of self-hatred.

Then he hits Sollux instead.

It’s a sloppy punch and it leaves his wrist throbbing but he barely notices the pain, not least because Sollux is more than willing to answer violence with violence.  Eridan’s never been punched in the stomach before and for a moment he can’t breathe and he thinks he’s going to puke.  But his heart is still in agony and driving him forward.  Doubled over, he throws all his weight into Sollux’s chest.  His glasses fall off in the process and something hits him in the face right after—maybe a knee. There’s a short, breathless moment of jostling and shoving and trying to find room for a limb to land a blow, and Eridan manages to drive an elbow somewhere painful.  Then something twists and Sollux has an arm around Eridan’s neck. He’s skinny as fuck, but this only serves to make the headlock more uncomfortable, and he’s stronger than any computer nerd has any right to be.

Then Feferi’s shouting and the headlock is shifting, and Eridan takes advantage of the moment to hit Sollux in the stomach, but when he twists around to look at Feferi she backhands him across the face. While he’s still reeling, Sollux shouts, “Now what the hell was that for, you bastard—“ and grabs Eridan’s shirt for a moment before Feferi grabs _his_ and drags him bodily away from Eridan.  When they start jerkily towards each other again, she drives a fist into either of their shoulders with a force that bewilders Eridan even more than Sollux’s headlock.

He’s almost never seen Feferi get angry, and she’s certainly never hit him for real before.  His arm and cheek are throbbing.  His eyes burn.

“ _What_ ,” says Feferi, panting and glaring, “was _that_ about? Don’t you dare lie to me, mister, just _tell_ me!  And leave out all the _drama_ , why don’t you?!”

If she’d asked him a day ago he would have objected stringently to the use of the word “drama” then beat around the bush denying that there was anything to be dramatic _about_. But this is now. Eridan leans down to pick up his glasses, slides them onto his nose, and breathes in slowly.

“We ain’t _friends_ anymore,” he says plaintively.  “And, I don’t know _how_ to be friends. And.  I.  Liked you. A lot.  Sorry.  Sorry.”

Sollux laughs and then coughs and snorts—his nose is bleeding.  Eridan glares at him, partially because it’s better than looking at Feferi.  He can’t even begin to imagine what her face looks like right now.

“I think I kind of know that,” she sighs. “And…you…punched him because…?”

He really wants her to _like_ the answer.  He wants to lie and stick to the lie until it becomes a kind of truth in his head. He’s done it so many times before but now that he’s actually thinking about what it means he realizes he can’t anymore.

“I was angry at you—well—no it’s my fault, but I was angry at everyone and—”

“You didn’t feel like punching yourself in the face?” says Sollux snidely, then looks a bit sheepish as Feferi gives him a tired glare.

“…Eridan,” she says, “I’m glad you came to visit, but…if you want to _talk_ about this stuff, I—we’re about to leave, and if we do talk, you can’t…” She trails off, looking troubled, her eyes flicking towards Sollux and back.  He puts a hand on her shoulder and nods ever so slightly.

 _Oh god,_ Eridan groans internally, _they’ve been talking about me, I just know it, and now she’s going to tell me it’s going to be the last time or something, and—_

“You have to promise not to do that thing you do where you don’t listen to me when I’m trying to help you.”

“I don’t—“ Eridan starts…

\--

_“It’s just that sometimes I feel like I talk to him and he doesn’t even care what I’m saying, he just thinks I’m asking for money!”_

_“Yeah, Mom’s the same sometimes…listen, though, I think if you just started a conversation explaining that that’s not what you’re after…”_

_“You don’t know him, Fef!  It wouldn’t work, he’s just so fuckin’ stubborn!”_

_“Sounds like someone else I know…”_

_“What’s that supposed to mean?  Look, I’m serious here, I don’t think he even cares where I go to school anymore! He just wants me out of the house!”_

_“No look, I’m serious too…come on, don’t get mad!”_

_“No, you know, never mind, you have your own problems, didn’t want to bother you.”_

_“Eridan!”_

\--

…and stops.

“…Okay,” he says.  “Sorry.  I didn’t…think about it like that before.”

The heartbreak has settled into a dull ache and the pain from the slap is more like a hot tingle in his face, but there’s a fresh, different kind of pain from swallowing his pride. _Very_ different. Very _new_.

But Fef looks surprised and maybe even a little bit pleased, and that makes it worth it.

“…I’ll pay for drinks?” he says, glancing between the two of them.  He’s sure Sollux won’t want him to come along, but to his surprise the guy just shrugs.

“Free drinks,” he says by way of explanation when he sees Eridan staring at him.  And Feferi just smiles a little weakly and shrugs and they walk there together in the early chill, Eridan staying an awkward couple of steps behind them until they reach the place.  There’s a kind of peace, for a while.

Of course, it can’t last long.

“Now, elitist is too strong a word, you’re not gettin’ what I’m tryin’ to say here!”

“It’s the perfect word and your worldview is _way_ fucked up.”

“What I’m _saying_ —what I’m saying, no, _listen_ —”  
“I’m not buying it, you just sound like an asshole to me.”

“No but, _okay_ , you just got _different_ types of people, right, an’ rich kids just understand each other best ‘cuz—”

“’Cuz they’re all _assholes_ ,” says Sollux, downing another shotglass.  “Well, there was Gamzee, I guess, he was always too high to care. Still, assholes.”

“I bought you that drink,” Eridan mumbles accusatorily.

“Yeah, with daddy’s money, right?”

“Eridan,” Feferi interjects before he can retort, “you’re not seriously telling me you don’t think we were a bunch of jerks.”

“I--”  he looks at her face.  Then down at his drink. Then at Sollux. “Okay,” he says, “so maybe we just ended up together ‘cuz no one liked us.”

“Now you’re talking,” says Sollux, and sits back. “Now get your ass in your own seat, ED, we were kind of arguing across her there.”

“Yes, you were!” says Feferi, but there’s a giggle in her voice that says she’s not all that angry.  They spend a moment of comfortable silence imbibing more alcohol, and Eridan finds himself somehow pleasantly balanced between happiness and annoyance, the buzz taking the edge off of his nerves. He spends a minute enjoying the feeling, a good memory that goes beyond that single perfect moment. He hopes he doesn’t have to be drunk to feel this way, but in the meantime…

“Where to next?” he says.

“Hm?”  
“Just take me around town.  Wherever, it’s on me.  Dad can yell all he wants when I get back, I think I owe you guys some drinks.”

“Aaaall the drinks?” Feferi asks, and they both laugh at her imitation of Vriska.

“Not all of ‘em,” says Sollux unexpectedly, waving an admonitory finger at Eridan.  “I’m gonna buy you at least one drink tonight, ED!  Half because FF probably would if she had any money—“ ( _“Hey, I’m working on it!”_ ) “—and half because I wanna be at least a little bit responsible for whatever crazy batshit you do tonight.”

“Okay, even if we do get royally smashed, you don’t _know_ somethin’ crazy’s gonna happen,” says Eridan.  They give each other significant looks.

Then Feferi frowns a little abruptly and says, “You might be right about that, actually.   Here, just let me…”  She pulls a phone out of her pocket—not the one he’s used to seeing her with, something ancient with a flipping mechanism and no touch screen.  She presses a few buttons and puts it to her ear.

“Hello?  Nepeta, hi!  Is Terezi there too? Are you guys busy? Too busy for—oh, ssshhh, no, it’s just an old high school friend came to visit!  Do you think we could convince Tavros to…well, I know he swore he wouldn’t go out with us again but he also said that last week.  If you can get him to come, do it!  Alright, see you soon!  What—no, yeah, same place as usual.  Later!” She makes a kissing noise into the phone, closes it, and turns a bright face to Eridan and Sollux.  “We’re going to _party_!”

\--

Witness: Eridan Ampora waking up in a strange apartment.

He’s lying on tile with a slice of fresh morning sun falling across his stomach and a headache hammering on the backs of his eyeballs. It hurts to move them. It hurts to move anything. His back aches. His chest complains with every breath. His mouth feels as though it’s been stuffed with cotton.

“Good morning, sleeping beauty!” says Feferi’s painfully chirpy voice from somewhere above him.  Eridan tries to express through minimal gestures and pained grunts that loud noises are like being stabbed through the brain right now and he would appreciate a little peace and quiet.  It doesn’t really seem to come across.

“We’re having waffles,” says Feferi. When he opens his eyes her face is nothing but a flesh-colored smudge.  Blinking does nothing to adjust his vision.

“Glasses,” he mumbles, squeezing his watering eyes shut.

“You can eat breakfast without them!” she says. “Now come on, Sollux just got the honey out. He can’t have any because of this allergy thing he’s got but we’re all really hungry and it’ll all be gone if you wait!”

In the end, someone does give him his glasses at the breakfast table, which was not built to accommodate six people but seems to be doing it anyway.  He’s not the only one grumbling and nursing a headache—Sollux and Terezi are dropping Advil in each other’s drinks and jostling each other half-heartedly over who’s going to make the coffee.  Terezi was dressed all in scaly leather and spikes last night, but she seems to have discarded most of it at some point, leaving her in nothing but shorts and a black sports bra. No one seems to care.

“Morning, kissyfish,” says the small, broad-faced girl across from him.  It takes Eridan a moment to realize she’s talking to him.

“Um,” he says.

“You don’t remember?” says…Nepeeta? Napata?  She turns to Feferi, wiggling her eyebrows obscenely. “Oooohhh, he doesn’t remember!”

“Remember _what_?” Eridan croaks, nerves making his headache pound again. “Did I…did we…you and me, I mean—“

“Everyone,” says Nepeta.

“What?”

“You kissed _everyone_ ,” Terezi volunteers, grinning and squinting at him with eyes whose problems can’t be solved by glasses.

“I—“

“Everyone,” says Tavros solemnly. “Pass the honey, please.”

“Even—“

“ _Everyone_ ,” says Sollux sourly.  “Not like, in a row or anything, just throughout the course of the night. It’s Nepeta’s fault for encouraging it—FUCK.”  His arm collides with someone’s orange juice as he points accusingly at Nepeta and there’s a busy scramble for towels and napkins and the topic of kissing disappears naturally.  In fact, throughout breakfast everyone seems utterly unconcerned with it.  Maybe he wasn’t that bad?

Or maybe, he thinks, looking blearily around at them, this kind of thing happens all the time here.  This would have been a big deal with the old crowd, waking up and finding out he’d been kissing the love of his life.

…and then, of course, rumors would have spread and their parents would have questioned their choices and who knows how that would have ended. 

It’s different here.  And _he’s_ different. He should feel out of place but hung over, picking at his waffles and honey, laughing in horrified embarrassment at pictures from last night, he almost feels like he belongs.

But in the end, of course, he has to head back home, and then there’s Dad’s yelling to listen to, and a college to pick out still. He’s starting to wonder what he wants to major in, which is amazingly a question that never occurred to him. He’s thought about fraternities and riflery clubs and finding good bars in the area, but never what classes he would be taking.

He calls Feferi about it one day, and when she mentions that he always seemed to enjoy History classes in high school, he doesn’t tell her his dad would never accept a bullshit major like History. He thinks about it and remembers how extra credit was actually _fun_ in those classes and he says that’s a good thought, he’ll take it into account.

Sometimes he visits Feferi and, by necessity, everyone else. Sometimes he starts arguments, sometimes he apologizes, and just once he gets in another fistfight, this time with Nepeta (she starts it).  And sometimes he feels awful again.  But by now he’s stopped wondering why it’s happening to him and started learning how to deal with things the way they are.

Sometimes, there are more kisses. And he’s not even drunk.

Witness: Eridan Ampora, getting his life together.

**Author's Note:**

> Who's he kissing? Who knows~  
> Maybe just everyone again. uvu


End file.
